


The One With Onni And The New Boy

by gaemmel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Hogwarts AU, M/M, Onni is like 17 and Reynir is maybe one year younger I guess, but they aren't like children or something, this is technially underage because they are not legal adults
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaemmel/pseuds/gaemmel
Summary: Onni is in his last year at Hogwarts, and his life has been quite uneventful and very much void of romance, until...





	The One With Onni And The New Boy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Abprallen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abprallen/gifts).



> This was a gift for the dear Abprallen for the Silent Night Gift Exchange 2017! The first chapter is the one I gifted, but I'd like to take this further in the future.

If the Hotakainen children saw each other at all, it was usually at meal times. Onni would always sit there at the exactly right time, often one or two small Hufflepuffs surrounding him, especially if the school year was still new and they were too scared to sit alone in the big hall and walk past all the scary older students, because he had been a prefect all the past years, even though he hadn’t made it Head Boy.  

Lalli and Tuuri were usually both late, Lalli quickly grabbing something from the table as soon as it appeared and disappearing at the first possible moment. He liked to be by himself, and the crowded hall flooded his sensitive ears and eyes. Not even the other Slytherins approached him if there was any way to avoid it. Tuuri on the other hand was always late, always had a few books in her arm that sat next to her while she ate, laughing and discussing and talking with her friends, and it seemed like there was no one in her house – Ravenclaw – that didn’t like her. Onni often regretted that neither of them had been sorted with him. Tuuri was hardworking, but too daring and too impulsive to be a Hufflepuff, and Lalli was just… Lalli. Onni felt like being sorted into Slytherin didn’t do him any good, like he had separated from his family even more since that happened.

Soon, after this year was done, he wouldn’t be able to take care of them anymore here, because his time in Hogwarts was nearly done. He dreaded the thought of having to re-arrange his life, of not being able to be with his sibling and his cousin anymore.

Tonight, after the meal was done, Onni walked over to Tuuri who sat amidst a group of friends, still eating their vanilla pudding.

“Oh, hi Onni!” Tuuri said, waving him over excitedly. “I have to introduce you to somebody!”

When he drew nearer, he saw that a tall, freckled guy with a ridiculously long ginger braid sat next to Tuuri on the bench, and the remembered: This year, Hogwarts had taken in four exchange students from the Icelandic Academy for Sorcery and Witchcraft. They call spoke surprisingly decent English, and each of them had been sorted into a different house – Onni, as the former prefect of house Hufflepuff had helped a girl called Hrafnhildur Jóna Jónsdottir (no one could pronounce it, but she was welcomed warmly nonetheless) accommodate into their house. This one, Reynir, had already acquired some fame in Hogwarts as he had tripped on his way down the stairs in the great hall after being sorted into Hufflepuff and fallen face first onto the stone floor before anybody could help him. Poor guy, they probably made fun of him in the other houses.

Right now, he turned around to Onni and smiled. “Hi, I’m Reynir!” he said. Onni looked back at Reynir and a response got stuck in his throat. By Merlin’s beard, that guy had beautiful eyes.

“Uh, uh. Hi.” Onni said, stretching out a hand that Reynir took and shook with vigour.

“You must be Onni, right? Tuuri told me about you, you’re in H- H…?” he looked around his friends for help.

“Hufflepuff”, replied a girl next to him with a pitiful smile.

“Right, Hufflefluff!” Reynir grinned, and the others around him broke out into laughter.

“Puff, Reynir, HufflePUFF!” Tuuri giggled, overpronouncing it for him.

“Oops.” Reynir said, turning a bit red in the face, but not seeming to mind much.

“I’m Onni.” Onni finally brought forward as the laughter died down.

“Right! Reynir.” Reynir repeated and smiled at him once more, his eyes seemed to twinkle. Onni’s breath caught in his throat.

“We’ll see each other again soon, I’m sure!” Reynir said.

“Yeah.” Onni said, looking to Tuuri, who was busy whispering something to another Ravenclaw. “I’ll be on my way then.” He said.

Tuuri looked up at that moment. “Onni, a few friends from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff wanted to go out to Hogsmeade on Saturday, do you want to come?”

Onni furrowed his brows. Tuuri had never before asked him to come along when she went out with friends. He faltered for a moment.

“Um. If I don’t have too much to do.” He said. As a 7th year student, you could always bring forward the excuse of having to study for your finals. With a last look on Reynir, Onni turned and walked out of the hall, Reynir’s voice lingering in his head.

-

Two days later, Onni stood in the entrance hall of Hogwarts and waited leaned against a wall. As he watched group after group of students go by, each passing minute gave him more time to worry. Would he know any of the people Tuuri brought to this? What if no one talked to him once they were there? What if they tried to talk him into doing something stupid or even illegal? He knew other students sometimes were like that, walking into the Forbidden Forest or daring each other to steal books from the forbidden sections of the library, get too close to the Whomping Willow, or…

“Hey Onni!” All of sudden, Reynir stood in front of him, grinning wildly. To his embarrassment, Onni noticed that he wasn’t wearing the school uniform, but civilian clothes, as it was custom for many students on days when there were no classes. Reynir was wearing a tie die shirt in pastel colours and a short jeans skirt, and his braid was falling loosely over his shoulder… Whilst looking at him, Onni could barely breathe, let alone talk.

“The others told me they’ll need more time to get ready, so they sent me ahead!” Reynir told Onni.

“Oh.” Onni said and swallowed. That meant he would have to pass a few minutes alone with Reynir…

“That’s nice of you. Thank you for telling me.” He brought out. He took a deep breath to brace himself to speak more and avoided Reynir’s eyes as he did. “Are they all going to be wearing civil clothes?”

“I think so?” Reynir said. “The others said everybody usually does? In Iceland, we don’t even wear uniforms.”

“Oh?” Onni said, looking up. “What-“ gosh, these green eyes set his stomach on fire – “what do you wear in Iceland to school?”

“Oh, we wear, um… traditional clothes, you could say? Like lots of wool and linen and belts to carry our equipment…” Reynir obviously had trouble explaining the whole thing in English, Onni realized.

“And, do you… you like to wear skirts?” Onni couldn’t help but ask.

“Oh yeah!” Reynir smiled. “It upsets people sometimes, but it makes me happy, so, whatever. And they won’t let me wear a skirt for the uniform here, but they can hardly forbid me to wear my skirts otherwise!” He didn’t even seem like the topic annoyed him.

“It doesn’t upset me.” Onni said. That was a lie. It upset Onni greatly, but in a way that he would never want to admit to Reynir. No one was allowed to look that amazing. No guy was allowed to have hair like that, to smile like that, to upset Onni’s mind like that…

The more he saw Reynir, the more embarrassed was Onni about his own plain school dress-up. “Um, I’d hate to make everyone wait, but I think I want to go change.” He brought forward.

“Oh, can I come with you?” Reynir blurted out.

“C-change?!” Onni squeaked.

“Nooo, into your house!” Reynir said, giggling. “I haven’t seen much of the castle yet apart from the Ravenclaw tower and some class rooms!”

“You can’t come into our common room.” Onni said. “No one goes into other houses common rooms.”

Reynir made a face. “That sucks.” He said. But then he smiled at Onni. “But I can still accompany you to the door!”

Together, they made their way back through the steady stream of students.

“So you’ve never seen other houses rooms?” He asked. “Not even the Gryffindor tower?”

Onni shook his head. “No, but I have heard descriptions.”

“But that’s not the same!” Reynir said, a bit surprised that Onni seemed not interested in the idea of catching a glimpse into the other houses rooms. “That’s as if I would say: Oh, I don’t need to go to England and go to school there, I have seen pictures!”

Onni furrowed his brows and threw Reynir a glance. They obviously had very different worldviews. It was an ancient tradition to keep the common rooms of the other houses secret!

“If you insist.” He said, not wanting to start a fight. They passed the great hall and made their way along a corridor that led past the kitchens until they encountered the set of barrels that was the secret entrance to the Hufflepuff common room.

“Here we are.” Onni said. Reynir looked around and then blinked at him.

“Here?”

“Yeah. The door is right here.” Onni said, and laid his palm against a barrel that, to the unknowing eye, looked just like all the other ones.

“Stay back and turn around, the door has defences against unbidden visitors.” He warned. Reynir complied by taking a few steps back and then turning his back on the barrels. Onni drummed the rhythm of the name Helga Hufflepuff against one of them and its lid swung open, revealing a tunnel.

“I’ll be right back.” Onni said and started his way through.

On the other side of the tunnel awaited him a big, cosy room with a warm fire burning in the chimney, and students sitting in groups and drinking tea and hot chocolate. Unlike the other houses, the Hufflepuffs were buddies with the house elves of Hogwarts, which lead to a lot of amenities on both sides. It was also another thing the other houses didn’t know of.

A few people greeted Onni, but he barely recognized them and almost jogged through a few corridors until he came to his room. As a student in his last year, he had a room for himself, and he was immensely grateful for that. He shut the door and immediately started stepping out of his clothes, and then rummaged in his cupboards for a good few minutes until he found something he dared wearing in front of the others… who was he even kidding, in front of Reynir.

Reynir, who was fashionable and looked amazing and had those eyes that shone like… On the way back, Onni did run, suddenly afraid that Reynir might be gone. But no, there he was, as he crawled back through the Hufflepuff tunnel entrance, leaning against the doorframe opposite of the barrels, his back still turned.

“I’m back.” Onni said as he got out. Reynir turned around, and his eye seemed to shine like the sun itself.

“Hey!” He waved excitedly.

“Did I take too long? I’m sorry.” Onni said.

 “No, it’s fine!” Reynir said. Onni stepped over to his side and together, they walked the way back. As they approached the great hall once again, they saw that it had already gone a lot quieter than a few minutes ago. Most students that had planned to go to Hogsmeade or for a walk today were already out, only a few were still on the long bridge that connected the castle with the main land.

“Um, so I guess we wait?” Reynir said, looking around.

“I guess.” Onni said.

And wait they did, both leaned against a wall, side by side. After a few minutes, they both startled as the clock tower sounded: It was half past two, half an hour later than they were supposed to meet.

“I think we have missed them.” Onni said.

“And **I** think they are huge late… is there a word for this in English? Late comers?” Reynir tried.

“ _Late comers_ is a word.” Onni confirmed.

“I think they are late comers and they still haven’t made it here!” Reynir said, sounding somewhat annoyed. Onni didn’t believe that, because he knew his sister. Tuuri was late, and Tuuri was not a very loyal person – if it suited her, she would immediately let someone hang to go have fun with her friends. She wouldn’t wait half an hour for someone like… like… like a Hufflepuff.

“Say,” Onni said to Reynir, “do you like being in Ravenclaw?”

Reynir scrunched his nose up in thought for a moment, then smiled again and said: “The tower is very nice and my room is very cosy! I have to share it with three other boys, which is a bit weird, but I think Ravenclaw is a good house! Although I don’t really know why that hat said I belonged there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, everybody says the _smart people_ go to Ravenclaw.”

“They do say that.” Onni replied. When Reynir didn’t continue, he asked: “But what’s wrong with that?”

“The thing is, I’m not smart.” The statement hung in mid-air between the two of them for a moment.

“Why do you think that?” Onni asked. “You seem smart enough to me.” Actually, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t asked himself yet whether Reynir was smart or not.  “And the hat doesn’t lie or make mistakes.”

“But how can it be sure?” Reynir asked, suddenly sounding a bit desperate. “It doesn’t know me! In Iceland, in school, at home, they always said I’m stupid! They said: Reynir, you’re pretty, you’re friendly, you’re kind, but you are dumb as a rock!” At the last sentence, he sounded like he was about to cry. Onni was shaken.

“Reynir…” he said, extending his hand to Reynir and softly touching his hand. Reynir didn’t jerk it away, like Onni had expected him to.

“From what I have seen of you now,” Onni began, haltingly, “you are kind, and you are friendly. But you are also loyal and you seem to always give your best, otherwise you wouldn’t have made it to Hogwarts. I don’t think you are dumb, not at all.” He swallowed. Should he? He should. “But they are right with the other thing, too.” He began clumsily. Reynir finally looked up at him, a bit confused.

“You are very pretty.” Onni said, almost choking on the words because his throat was so tight he could barely speak.

Reynir’s eyes went wide and he stared at Onni in disbelief. “T-thank you!” he said, even blushing a bit underneath his mess of red hair. “That was so nice of you.” He said, squeezing Onni’s hand that had touched his. Onni couldn’t believe they were holding hands, even if it was going to be over in a second.

He looked around as he heard a jeer and they realized that they had spectators.

“Um, maybe we should forget about meeting your sister and the others?” Reynir suggested.

Onni smiled. “I think I would like that. Let’s just go somewhere.” Reynir didn’t let go of his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Just so you know: I read Harry Potter in German growing up. I have to look up all the terms. I hope I won't mess up something at some point. 
> 
> *mutters* Why is it Whomping Willow and not Whipping Willow...


End file.
